Assignment  -

Assignment

Overview

Topic: Entity-Relationship (ER) data model
Related Reading: Ch. 2
Due: 12:45pm Tuesday, 16 September 2003

In a series of assignments during the course, we will have you performing various steps of the design and implementation of a database. In this first assignment, we want you to identify a potential database project and to develop an ER model for the data.

Form a group of one to three people.
Pick a project domain. This is not so easy. A project should have the following qualifications:
- Each group needs a unique project.
- Your project should NOT be taken from the book.
- Your project can not be a University Database.
- Your project can be a database that you use at work.
- Your project should contain at least five entities per person in the group and about the same number of relationships. If you have three people in the group that means at least 15 entities.
- Your project should be realistic as possible. In fact, it would be best if you research a real life application that needs to be developed (it might be a lot easier that way). Remember that your project needs to be interesting and complex enough to explore most of the concepts that we will be learning in the course.
Write a few paragraph describing your chosen domain. Be as specific as possible (should be about a page or two).
Create an E-R diagram for your project following the guidelines we set up in class. The diagram should include entities, attributes, keys, relations, key constraints, participation constraints, weak entities, and identifying relationships.
Include a list of questions that you asked (or would have asked) your real (or imaginary) client and the responses you got. These should be questions that would have an effect on your design. For instance: Does a person have more than one office? The answer would determine the cardinality of the relationship between employee and office.

You will be graded on thoroughness, difficulty, and originality. Please do not leave out any part of the description above. Each group should submit one hard copy for this assignment.